CHAPTER V DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
5.1 Receptive and productive English polysemous phrasal verb knowledge
This study explored the high school learners’ receptive and productive knowledge of English polysemous phrasal verbs in Thailand using the multiple test battery. The results showed that the aspects of English polysemous phrasal verb knowledge were correlated but not known concurrently, suggesting that it is an incremental learning process.
The findings indicate that Thai high school participant performance on different polysemous phrasal verb tests demonstrates various degrees of knowledge.
Participants perform best on the receptive knowledge test, followed by the controlled productive knowledge and productive knowledge tests. The performance of these tests reflects the degrees of polysemous phrasal verbs and their acquisition. The current findings provide evidence to support previous studies that, like vocabulary, different aspects of polysemous phrasal verbs are obtained at different speeds (Demetriou, 2020; Garnier & Schmitt, 2016; Kamarudin et al., 2019; Sonbul et al., 2020).
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The three measures of polysemous phrasal verbs used in the current study indicate varying degrees of phrasal verb knowledge. The RPT test measures participants’
ability to recognize the form and meaning and comprehend a phrasal verb in decontextualized sentences. By contrast, the CPPT reflects participants’ ability to recall and create polysemous phrasal verbs when prompted in provided sentences.
Similarly, the PPT measures participants’ ability to draw on different types of knowledge, including cognitive and metacognitive strategies, to relate the meaning and form of the target phrasal verbs in prompted contexts with little clues. The situation could be explained by the degrees of learning in L2 contexts (Laufer &
Goldstein, 2004). The RPT possibly inflicted a far less heavy cognitive processing demand on Thai learners than the CPPT, which likely imposed a less processing demand than the PPT. The difference between the RPT and the PPT scores may imply that the CPPT test acts as a bricklayer, scaffolding learners to acquire and develop knowledge of phrasal verbs. In other words, receptive knowledge of phrasal verbs progresses productive phrasal verb knowledge. These findings also suggest that receptive phrasal verb knowledge is learned at an initial stage in which such knowledge may not be fully mastered. That is, productive knowledge of phrasal verbs may not be mastered unless receptive knowledge of phrasal verbs is fully acquired.
Based on the mean percentage of English polysemous phrasal verb knowledge, scores on the receptive test of English polysemous phrasal verb knowledge were the highest, followed by the controlled-productive test and at least the free productive test. The results showed that participants had better receptive knowledge than productive knowledge of the target polysemous phrasal verbs. Consistently, learners know receptively English polysemous phrasal verbs more than productively, implying that receptive knowledge’s English polysemous phrasal verbs are likely acquired before its productive knowledge (Chodchoi, 2018; Demetriou, 2020; Garnier & Schmitt, 2016;
Kamarudin et al., 2019; Paugtes, 2020; Rumpanpetch, 2013; Sonbul et al., 2020;
Zhang & Wen, 2019). Moreover, Thai EFL high school participants demonstrated a greater understanding of the form and meaning of the target phrasal verb than of its application in authentic contexts. This is consistent with the notion that receptive knowledge entails recognizing the form and/or meaning of lexical items, as stated in
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previous research. In contrast, productive knowledge requires retrieving and generating semantically suitable lexical forms. (Jeensuk & Sukying, 2021; Laufer &
Goldstein, 2004; Nation, 2013; Sukying & Nontasee, 2022, Sukying, 2017, Zhang &
Sukying, 2021). The results show that productive usage of phrasal verbs may not occur unless a certain phrasal verb is wholly mastered. However, it should be noted that Thai high school EFL learners had intermediate performance in English polysemous phrasal verb knowledge, both receptively and productively. Learners may not understand the meaning of phrasal verbs in different contexts and may be unable to use them appropriately or correctly. The current study results are consistent with previous literature that phrasal verbs were challenging for EFL learners (Celce- Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Schmitt & Siyanova, 2007). Given the semantic complexity of figurative phrasal verbs, EFL learners frequently find it difficult to know the semantic properties of phrasal verbs, in addition to the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently to use them (Chodchoi, 2018; Paugtes, 2020;
Rumpanpetch, 2013), particularly in Thailand (Boontong, 2015; Kosolsombat &
Pongpairoj, 2017). Learners grapple with the complexities of phrasal verb meaning because it is unrelated to the typical meaning of the constituents (Blau, Gonzales, &
Green, 1983).
Consistent with previous findings on the acquisition of phrasal verbs (e.g., Demetriou, 2020; Garnier & Schmitt, 2016; Kamarudin et al., 2019; Sonbul et al., 2020), the current findings indicate that the ability to recall and produce English phrasal verbs is more complex than the ability to recognize English phrasal verbs. This phenomenon could be explained by context-specific learning levels (Nation, 2013). In other words, the productive measure of phrasal verb knowledge imposed a significantly greater processing burden on Thai high school learners than the receptive measure. In fact, the new finding shows that productive knowledge is constructed from receptive knowledge. Together, receptive and productive knowledge acquisition is ongoing and receptive to productive knowledge shifts gradually (Henriksen, 1999; Nation, 2013;
Schmitt, 2010).
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According to the items used from the PHaVE List, which present the most frequent meaning senses of the most frequent English PVs (Garnier & Schmitt, 2015), The performance of the participants on the tests indicated that the lower-frequency meaning sense was less well-known than the higher-frequency meaning sense. For example, in the word "put up," the figurative meaning sense has a lower occurrence frequency (COCA frequency = 931.635) than the literal meaning sense's (COCA frequency = 3341) in both the CPPT and RPT tests; however, it was excluded from the main study due to being outside the difficulty and discrimination average.
Consistent with previous findings on the acquisition of phrasal verbs (Garneir &
Schmitt, 2016), the frequency of occurrence was the best predictor of PV knowledge.
Because PVs have been proven to be prevalent in the everyday language of native speakers, it is vital to master English PVs (Garneir & Schmitt, 2016). Yet, to utilize a language naturally in context, EFL learners must be familiar with phrasal verbs (Gardner & Davies, 2007; Garnier & Schmitt, 2015). Knowing phrasal verbs can help students increase their fluency and native-like choices and also minimize cognitive effort by shortening the time spent processing a word and making it instantly available in their minds. Furthermore, Cornell (1985) emphasizes that native English speakers intuitively absorb and communicate well in spoken discourse and informal writing. However, because of the dynamism of phrasal verbs in English and the difficulty in recognizing their use, EFL learners should be taught how to communicate effectively in English using phrasal verbs. However, because of their high productivity, phrasal verbs pose challenges for EFL students to comprehend and use (Bolinger, 1971). For EFL learners, the lack of L2 exposure negatively impacts their knowledge of PVs, as most of their everyday exposures are in L1 (Garnier & Schmitt, 2016). In order to expand their knowledge of PVs and L2 vocabulary in general, L2 learners should be encouraged to devote more time to such activities. To effectively increase vocabulary knowledge, it may be necessary to mix implicit and explicit learning and for teachers to pay more attention to PVs in instructional contexts (Garnier & Schmitt, 2016).
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The results of the current study give primary information on polysemous phrasal verb knowledge acquisition. Even though the study indicates evident details in the domain of phrasal verb knowledge, it still needs more research to describe clearer its nature and conceptualization in acquisition and development and provide the benefits for the pedagogy.
5.2 Relationship between English polysemous phrasal verb knowledge and